The latest edition of the Mexican Botanical Congress took place at the peaceful city of Aguascalientes.
 
Home of around 797,010 inhabitants, Aguascalientes is situated in North-Central Mexico, and has been rated as the cleanest city in Latin America. The city is surrounded by biodiverse dry forests, with several species of cacti and the impressive arboreal Ipomoea murucoides.
 
An IAWA Symposium was organized by Teresa Terrazas and Marcelo Pace entitled “Diversity, function and evolution of wood and bark anatomy” with 12 contributions on topics including the creation of dichotomous keys (Emmanuel García-Gutierrez, INECOL A.C.), wood density in relation to diverse inclusions in dry forests (Eunice Romero, IB UNAM), dendrochronology studies in pine wood in response to climatic changes and drought (Marcos González-Cásares and Andrea Acosta-Hernández, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango), functional variation of Quercus wood from Jalisco (Maribel Arenas Navarro, ENES Morelia), variations in the periderm of trees growing in different regimes (Rosani Arruda, UFMS, Brazil), variations in bark thickness (Karen Vázquez, IE UNAM), a compilation of Mexican wood anatomical studies from tropical montane cloud forests (Silvia Aguilar-Rodríguez FES Iztacala), the universal pattern of tracheal elements widening in plants (Cecilia Martínez-Pérez, IB UNAM), diversity of successive cambia in Amaranthaceae (Silvia Zumaya, IB UNAM), taxonomic importance of Mimosa wood anatomy (Suzana Adriana Arias, Colegio de Postgraduados) and the stem anatomical stasis in Malpighiaceae from America, Africa and Asia (Marcelo Pace IB UNAM).


The symposium was successful in gathering most anatomists in the Congress and creating a platform to discuss collaborations and perspectives for wood and bark anatomical research in Mexico and Latin America. About 50 participants had registered for attending the IAWA symposium.